Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a component carrying tray which carries a plurality of stacked components.
Description of the Related Art
Recently, an automatic assembling apparatus which performs an assembly operation by a robot has been required replacing manual assembly operations. In the manual assembly operation, a human cell production system is introduced so that each operator assembles multiple components. In order to replace the human cell with a robot cell, the automatic assembling apparatus in which an assembling robot can grasp and assemble various components has been required.
In general, a tray is usually used to supply components to the automatic assembling apparatus. A conventional automatic assembling apparatus mainly supplies a small number of components to one assembling robot and performs assembly at high speed. Therefore, a tray on which components are flatly placed as described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2011-140339 has been used as the tray which supplies the components to the automatic assembling apparatus. When this tray is used, the flatly placed components can be precisely positioned at regular positions so that the assembling robot can acquire the components. Moreover, a plurality of trays which have not yet contained any components can be densely carried. Thus, conveyance costs of the trays can be reduced.
However, when the tray on which the components are flatly placed as in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2011-140339 is used, it is difficult to efficiently supply the components within a movable range of the assembling robot in order to supply a large number of components to one assembling robot. That is, a function of densely supplying the components within the limited robot movable range has been further required for a component carrying tray of the robot cell.
Accordingly, in order to densely supply the components, it is possible to carry a plurality of components stacked on the tray and supply the components to the robot cell. For example, when components are circularly cylindrical, it is possible to supply the robot cell with a plurality of components stacked on a circularly columnar component carrying tray. As a result, a plurality of components can be positioned. However, it is difficult to densely carry the component carrying trays containing no components. On the other hand, when the component carrying tray is formed into a truncated cone shape to ensure the function of stacking the component carrying trays, it is difficult to precisely position the components carried on the component carrying trays at regular positions.